Long term future of Camino?

[cflawson]

Unfortunately, what we really need at this point requires at least some experience with programming. Java or C/C++ would be fine, but you *do* need at least a little programming experience to be able to help out with making Camino run on Webkit.

That isn't meant to discourage people from volunteering other abilities they might have, just pointing out that programmers are what we're most urgently in need of. Stop by our IRC channel if you're interested

cl

[Uncle Asad]

There's one activity that can be done by non-programmers: on the list someone suggested making an (organized) inventory of all of Camino's features, and so far no-one has stepped up to work on that. It's probably a task that is best worked on by several people, because some people will find some features that others won't, and so forth.

But to reemphasize what cflawson said, what we need most are people with some programming experience; if you've been able to pick up one language, with some help and study you'll be able to pick up Objective-C and Cocoa and contribute.

Java or C/C++ would be fine, but you *do* need at least a little programming experience to be able to help out with making Camino run on Webkit.

Or even AppleScript That, plus some Apple BASIC waaaay back in the day, constituted my only programming "experience"

A better example is froodiantherapy, who was one of our most prolific contributors back in the 1.5/1.6 era; he was learning Java in school and picked up Objective-C and became the equivalent of a Camino rock star

[mem0]

...we need most are people with some programming experience...

Maybe, the Summer Of Code Project would be a good opportunity to find motivated students to help switching to webkit

[MacPB]

Rather than starting from scratch with porting Camino to WebKit, could you recycle the code from the Flock project? Flock is a dead project now, which I was shocked to see. With them having done so much work to port Flock from Gecko to WebKit (Chromium), I was surprised to see that the project was done. And with so much effort having gone into it, it would be a shame to see that work go unused when Camino could take that code and make it their own to keep Camino alive. Heck, Flock even had a beautiful interface. I liked it a lot anyway.

[mycamino]

I have read most of this long thread. I love Gecko it does things the webkit can't.
I am a browsers roamer; I use a lot of them. I have recently limited myself by letting my son usurp
my i7 iMac and I am using a high end G5 for fun. My only favor to ask is to keep Camino Universal
Binary so low end Macs can use it. iCab has done this and so has a new upstart called Roccat.
I can use Leopard on my machine but prefer Tiger to the Leopard OSs. Even though I have a license
for iCab I use Camino as my main browser on the G5.
I'm in for the ride no matter where it goes,
Dan.

[HenriHudson]

Rather than starting from scratch with porting Camino to WebKit, could you recycle the code from the Flock project? Flock is a dead project now, which I was shocked to see. With them having done so much work to port Flock from Gecko to WebKit (Chromium), I was surprised to see that the project was done. And with so much effort having gone into it, it would be a shame to see that work go unused when Camino could take that code and make it their own to keep Camino alive. Heck, Flock even had a beautiful interface. I liked it a lot anyway.

Another opinion: I did not find Flock that beautiful, and I certainly prefer Camino's current, simple interface, but Flock was very useful as far as management of social networking sites was concerned. I miss Flock very much for those integrated functions that made it much lighter in RAM than Firefox and all its add-ons, and even though i wouldn't rate it as a priority, i sure would like it if some of them made it into Camino.

HH

[dmnelson]

For whatever it's worth, my impression was that Flock was basically a layer of extensions piled on top of Firefox. And their WebKit-based version was basically the same extensions piled on Chrome/Chromium. Not to diminish the fine work they did, but I think any "porting" work they did was more about extensions than the browser itself. I doubt much of it would be relevant with regard to the task of switching Camino to WebKit.

[Uncle Asad]

There's one activity that can be done by non-programmers: on the list someone suggested making an (organized) inventory of all of Camino's features, and so far no-one has stepped up to work on that. It's probably a task that is best worked on by several people, because some people will find some features that others won't, and so forth.

Because I've been asked about this elsewhere, I wanted to add some more detail about what I meant:

The "inventory of all of Camino's features" is everything Camino can do

Obviously there's everything in the menus, and then some additional things in the Preferences window, but there are lots of Camino features that don't involve, or don't directly involve, items in Camino's menu (e.g., phishing/malware protection, spell-checking text fields, context menu stuff, cookie prompts, autocomplete, sorting bookmarks, detecting feeds and OpenSearch search descriptions, etc.).

Basically, one (or more) people would need to start with the menus and preference panes (and all the sheets therein) and list everything there, then exhaustively visit every other window and content view and track down all the things that are available without user interaction, available via button or context menu, etc.

[HenriHudson]

Basically, one (or more) people would need to start with the menus and preference panes (and all the sheets therein) and list everything there, then exhaustively visit every other window and content view and track down all the things that are available without user interaction, available via button or context menu, etc.

(non programmer's question) Isn't that something translators must have completed already in order to work on the various menus, etc?

HH

[Uncle Asad]

Basically, one (or more) people would need to start with the menus and preference panes (and all the sheets therein) and list everything there, then exhaustively visit every other window and content view and track down all the things that are available without user interaction, available via button or context menu, etc.

(non programmer's question) Isn't that something translators must have completed already in order to work on the various menus, etc?

HH

No, the translators just use a program that dumps every text string in Camino into a big table and then reintegrates their translated strings in place of the English ones.

(Another good example of a Camino feature that's not directly in the menu is the location sheet that's available when the toolbar is hidden It's not something most of us use every day, so it's a feature that might otherwise get forgotten.)

[David Munch]

I've been using Chrome for 3 months now. Apart from syncing of settings and tab-specific threads, which is really nice, it doesn't come close to Camino in my user experience, when it comes to stability, speed and lack of 'quirks' (Really, they call that a bookmark manager??).

I really hope Camino has a future.. Because I'm switching back!

[mem0]

...I really hope Camino has a future...

[macwish]

Having used Safari, Opera, Chromium, Chrome, iCab, I always come back to Camino. For me, it has always been and remains the best browser available - even though it means I have to avoid updating 1Password which no longer supports Camino.

[alexgo]

Maybe you should start a fundraiser through kickstarter or something?

[Drayon]

I don't see any point in Camino being Webkit from the end user POV. We have more than enough Webkit browsers that cover every use. OmniWeb and iCab cover the advanced end of the market while Safari and Chrome cover the overly simple beginner market. On the Gecko platform we only have only two browsers, Firefox being the advanced and Camino the simple browser. The problem that I have is that Firefox is a disaster from a design perspective, it may be fine on Windows but it's a repugnant piece of junk on the Mac and for me is unusable even with the million hacks. Camino on the other hand is a beautifully designed browser which is a pleasure to use but it is too basic and simple for my full time use. That said, I use Camino when Webkit browsers fail to render pages correctly. The problem is that Firefox on Windows is such a dominant force that Windows web developers don't give a shit about any other browser and code only for Firefox and IE. When issues arise only Gecko browsers work correctly so we have Camino that comes to the rescue. After all that Firefox thin on the Mac is a downright abhor-ration.

The current issue I have is that Webkit browsers will not display alternative text links when images are not loaded unless the width and height is set.

More info here:
http://rebuildingtheweb.com/en/how-shou ... -alt-text/

The reality is we need a Cocoa Gecko browser on the Mac. I personally don't consider Firefox worthy of the title 'Mac Software'.